His name is Muhammad Majid Bakr. He was a 23-year-old Palestinian fisherman killed by an Israeli rifleman patroling on a naval boat in the Gaza Sea.

When he was shot, Muhammad Majid Bakr (left) was fishing at 8:30, Monday morning, 69 years since the day the Nakba began.

Muhammad was shot in the chest when he and his brother Umran Majid Bakr, were in their small fishing boat in the waters of the Gaza Sea.

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Bleeding profusely, Muhammad was taken to an Israeli hospital where he died, the latest Palestinian victim whose death came, Israeli officials claim, because his boat had "deviated from the designated fishing zone".

The Bakr brothers had entered the Gaza Sea the morning of the day Muhammed died, to fish for food to eat, to share, perhaps to sell.

They had traveled from their home in al-Shati, refugees in their own land, a land which has suffered under colonial occupation since the army of a newly-formed state of Israel began its invasion of Palestine on May 15, 1948, 69 years ago.

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Al-Shati is now a city with a population in excess of 80,000. It was created in 1948 as a refugee camp for about 23,000 Palestinians, all of whom had been driven from their homes in the cities of Jaffa, Lod and Beersheba.

Palestinians have designated May 15 as the Day of the Nakba, an Arabic word for catastrophe. Palestinians in Israel and the current state of Palestine, marked Nakba 69 with rallies, marches and candlelight vigils.

Thousands of Palestinians in the cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem marched in the streets carrying Palestinian flags and keys symbolic of the "right of return" for refugees who lost their homes during the Nakba.

Israel continues to make it difficult for Palestinians to commemorate Nakba. It has passed a "Nakba law" that "authorises Israel's finance minister to revoke funding from institutions that reject Israel's character as a 'Jewish state' or mark Israel's 'Independence Day' as a day of mourning".

Nakba Day 69 is also the 29th day of the hunger strike of 1,500 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails, a hunger strike designed to draw world attention to the injustice of Israel's occupation. The strike has been largely ignored by American media.

Outside the Zionist iron dome that smothers American culture, scattered attention is paid to the occupation. You American readers, raise your hand if your local church or synagogue remembered the suffering of the hunger strikers in their prayers this weekend. Anyone? Didn't think so.

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The capital city of Ireland did more than offer prayers.

Last month, a Dublin City Council sub-committee passed a motion to fly the Palestinian flag over Dublin's City Hall.

The action was applauded by BADIL, a Palestinian legal rights NGO. Underlining the importance of this symbolic act of solidarity to the Palestinian people, BADIL quoted Tamir, a 13-year-old child from the Palestinian Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem as saying:

James Wall served as a Contributing Editor of The Christian Century magazine, based in Chicago, Illinois, from 1999 through 2017. From 1972 through 1999, he was editor and publisher of the Christian Century magazine. Many sources have influenced (more...)